[P] the rose and the viper

[Manon]

come a little closer,
why don't you hold me a little tighter


How dare he. How could one carry so much weight in their breast, how could the heaviness not eat him alive after all of their letters, all of the emotions passed from hand to hand in small, blocked and short words that really said nothing at all to anyone that wasn't them? They both knew better than to leave any incriminating mark on their parchments, to give any sort of identifying feature should it get lost in transit and other hands laid claim to them. They both knew better than to write any real emotion on those scraps of paper, somehow always neatly folded, and maybe it was safer that way, too, for the sake of their dignities. She had never admitted feelings for anyone (not even Senna, who sat quietly at the forefront of a complicated history) and who was she to say she might have felt love anyway? How was she to know what gravity that word carried when her life was full of strife and a heart that only sought vindication for her actions?

There were questions she had that wouldn't get answered by words that night, as the candles flickered low and the shadow that crossed the end of the hall had little idea what anger and heartache sat in that curved chest of hers.

He revealed himself, and, well... Isn't that what she wanted? She had been holding out hope that it would be him to find her last little note, be him to appear up those steps, be him to walk down the dimly lit corridor, and then... What? What did she want from him, to be swept off her hooves, to be argued with, to be left like she had always been before? Which of those options would it come down to, really, and which did she prefer over the others?

More questions, always more questions. She had never yearned for answers more than those that surrounded his mysteries.

"Give this to him," she had told the bartender hurriedly, and he didn't have to ask to who. He had been dealing their letters out like playing cards, after all, and he knew better than to ask the dagger-hearted woman anything. She wouldn't have known what to say, anyway, and some things were better left off as wonder. She wasn't there to crush dreams or slash the sweet silk of imagination--let them think what they wanted about her. They knew she could find them and crack their chest open if they took one unfavorable step, and that was enough for her.

Let them come up with their own stories.

But now that he was there, in front of her after making his move, chiding her for her letters (did she start it, or did he? maybe they were both complicit, but what crimes hadn't they already committed?), she stood stone still, speechless, the ease of his movements and the soft flow of his words harsh against her prickled skin, and she felt more like thorns than roses. Her crown, for however inanimate of an object it was, reacted intermittently to her lack of 'fight' instinct and maybe she wanted to hide then, to disappear beneath the floorboards and simply pretend nothing ever happened. She began to waver in and out of view, blurred one moment as if there was a slightly-off shimmer of reality where she just stood, and back, entirely whole, the next. Each time he blinked he would most likely see it as one, then the other, and maybe one of those times she truly would be gone--but maybe they both knew better than that.

That was first sign something was wrong.

The second came when Manon did none of the things she imagined when seeing him again: she didn't play coy, she didn't slyly divulge in a smile or playfully toss a wink, or even whisper his name as though she might have thought she'd never see him again and the sight of him took her breath away. She had no games to play, didn't care to appease his wit; he had closed himself off to her without a reason why and cut off her not-really-admissions of affection like they hadn't just spent months of their time revealing little secrets of themselves in ways that only made sense to them. She didn't understand it, and he hadn't been willing to help her understand it, so why did her heart still thud for him and her thoughts halt haphazardly for him and all her desires were for him?

And then she wasn't sure she would ever tell him those things, like she had one believed.

"Oh... you came." Flat, nearly monotone, her voice was nothing like it had been that first night, their first meeting, their first exchanges, the first piece of her being given to him. A stranger, but one she knew so well, or at least thought she knew before her world became slightly smaller. She ached, oh how she wished things were different, but there they stood and as his words crashed down around her, her reply was like a shattering of some thin wall that was built between them and she was thrust back into reality.

He asked for an invitation in and she hesitated for but a moment's beat and turned to face her door. The rose was painted on it as it had always been, and she softly pushed it open with a hushed creak.

She didn't look back at him, but the door remained open, waiting for him to follow.

CREDITS

@toulouse oh he's in trouble